172 FARTHEST NORTH 



all ; life without it is so empty, so empty — nothing but 

 dead emptiness. Is it the restlessness of spring that is 

 beginning to come over one ? — the desire for action, for 

 something different from this indolent, enervating life ? 

 Is the soul of man nothing but a succession of moods 

 and feelings, shifting as incalculably as the changing 

 winds? Perhaps my brain is over-tired; day and night 

 my thoughts have turned on the one point, the possi- 

 bihty of reaching the Pole and getting home. Perhaps 

 it is rest I need — to sleep, sleep! Am I afraid of 

 venturing my life? No, it cannot be that. But what 

 else, then, can be keeping me back? Perhaps a secret 

 doubt of the practicability of the plan. My mind is 

 confused; the whole thing has got into a tangle; I am 

 a riddle to myself. I am worn out, and yet I do not 

 feel any special tiredness. Is it perhaps because I sat 

 up reading last night ? Everything around is empti- 

 ness, and my brain is a blank. I look at the home 

 pictures and am moved by them in a curious, dull way; 

 I look into the future, and feel as if it does not much 

 matter to me whether I eet home in the autumn of this 

 year or next. So long as I get home in the end, a year 

 or two seem almost nothinof. I have never thouofht this 

 before. I have no inclination to read, nor to draw, nor 

 to do anything else whatever. Folly ! Shall I try a few 

 pages of Schopenhauer? No, I will go to bed, though 

 I am not sleepy. Perhaps, if the truth were known, I 

 am longing now more than ever. The only thing that 



